The Assignment
For All Nails 113A: The Assignment by Mike Keating FN1 ---- :War Department, Mexico City :9 July 1972 FN2 Alexander Winston sat in his office. It was a medium sized office, befitting a medium-level functionary with some decision-making influence in military intelligence. His visitor came in. Winston rose to shake hands with him. "You wanted to see me, sir?" asked one of the agents that reported to him. The man's name, although few knew it, was Harold Pickett. Both men were pure-bred Anglos. "Yes, on a matter that concerns us both personally as well as our nation. I understand you are in the Birthright Foundation?" "Why yes, I am." The Foundation was made up mostly of Anglos who hated the CNA for simply existing. They traced their family trees back to the original settlers of Jefferson; and still felt irked at the failure of the Rebellion. Birthrighters felt that America was their homeland, which should be rightfully independent of the United Empire; they all hoped to reclaim that birthright someday. Both men knew it to be against high odds, though (something they never voiced at Foundation meetings). "Would it surprise you to learn that there are some, but not many really, in the CNA who feel the same way?" "It would stun me, sir. I always believed the CNA had loyalty from all its citizens, except the ones spying for someone." "Well, if you recall your history, many of the Anglos who founded Jefferson, and later the USM, came from the southern colonies. That is because it's mucho FN3 easier in those days to go from Georgia or North Carolina, say, to Jefferson than from New England. So many who sided with the rebels and hated the compromise in the North stayed behind. The hatred has died down as their descendants realized the CNA was going to work. But it is still there in small numbers. I have made discreet contacts with some individuals in one of these groups. We are going to secretly fund them; they can arm and supply themselves discreetly. And they will be in a position to act as valuable couriers for agents we have in place at some CNA labs." "If I don't need to know, sir-" "Oh, but you do because you will be giving them their missions. One lab is in Burlington, New York. The other is in their own city of Black Rock, at the other end of New York. We already have systems in place to get the Burlington information to Black Rock. They must simply get it to you as their contact with us." "I see. When do I leave?" "Tonight. You are to take a cruise to Europe and go by rented loke to Germany under your standard Lopez cover. There you'll switch to this identity, a German ex-sergeant named Schultz, and head to the CNA. Your contact information is in the envelope with your travel papers. If you are captured, either as Lopez or Schultz, you know nothing, of course." "Of course, sir." "Good luck, Harold." "Thank you, sir." ---- Forward to FAN #113B (Harold Pickett) (20 July 1972): The Black Rock Plot. Return to For All Nails. Category: Pickett